Alarm device



H. E. ROSE ET AL ALARM DEVICE Jan. 26 ,.l926. 1,570,705

Filed Oct. 18, 1925 INVENTORS HE/FBEATE/POSE ,IfZBE/TILOE/QSMGER ATTORNEYS Patented Jan. 26, 1926.

UNITED STATES HERBERT E. ROSE, OE WARWICK, AND ALBERT J. LOEPSINGER, OF PROVIDENCE,

PATENT OFFICE.

RI-IODE ISLAND, ASSIGNORS, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, 'IO GENERAL FIRE EX- TINGUISHER COMPANY, OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE.

ALARM DEVICE.

Application filed October 18, 1923. Serial No. 669,409.

T 0 all whom it may concern.

Be it known that we, HERBERT E. Ross and ALBERT J. LOEPSINGER, citizens of the United States, residing at ar-wick and Providence, respectively, in the counties of Kent and Providence, respectively, and State of Rhode Island, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Alarm Devices, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to improvements in alarm devices. More particularly it frelates to the mechanical motors employed in such devices for actuating an alarm. In automatic sprinkler systems there is usually provided an alarm valve, which may also be a dry pipe valve normally closed while the system is inoperative, which is adapted to open when discharge from the system occurs as upon the release of one or more sprinkler heads. The unseating of this valve opens a subsidiary passage leading to a water motor to which a part of the water under pressure in the main system immediately flows, and continues to flow as long as the alarm valve remain open. The movement of this water through the motor causes the rotation of a water wheel whose shaft also carries a striker device intended to rain blows upon a gong to give the alarm.

Such gongs are usually set out of doors and are large in order that the alarm may be efiective at considerable distances, but it occasionally occurs that the desired loudness of signal is not given. The mechanism operates, but produces only a sort of rattling which gives an ineffective sound. This appears to result from too great a speed of the motor; but inasmuch as the motor speed varies with the impelling water pressure, which in turn varies greatly in the practice in different locations, and sometimes varies from time to time in the same installation, no satisfactory means has been known to make the alarm operate unfailingly. Instances occur where the water pressure reaches 125 or 130 pounds; and the underwriters desire an equally eiiicient alarm both at these high pressures and at pressures as low as 5 pounds'which sometimes occur. It is a feature of the invention to provide so that the speed of the water motor avill be automatically restricted within a certain narrow range, notwithstanding considerable range of operating pressures. The said narrowirange of speeds is predetermined and limited so that there is time enough between successive strokes of the striker for the gong to have a full and clear vibration.

The invention provides means in combination with the water motor for permitting the full force of the water pressure, which is relatively small, as customarily provided for apparatus of the sort described, to operate on the wheel; and for causing a part of this force, when it increases in magnitude, to counteract itself as it were, and keep the effective force expended upon the wheel within predetermined limits. It is intended by so doing to hold down the speed of the motor and the corresponding speed of the striker so that the gong will vibrate as it is designed to do, when there is high pressure, yet to leave the wheel sufliciently free, when there is low pressure, so that it will not then be retarded by the means that re tard it when the pressure happens to be high. It is a feature of the invention to accomplish this by several agencies,. ea'ch structurally independent of the other, but arranged so that the effect of each combines with the effects of the others to produce the desired result Other characteristics of the invention will be manifest as the description develops.

An application of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, showing an ordinary bucket-bladed water wheel having the usual connection with a striker washer rotatable within the hollow of a fire gong. Near the end of the circuit around the casing, on the peripheral inside surface which surrounds the water wheel, a deflector is provided which turns the spent and downflowing water on the casing in toward the wheel blades, thus providing an impediment to the blades, through which they must be forced by the power of the incoming water. When the supply pressure is small the amount of water entering the casing is in consequence not large. This deflector is constructed so that the restrictive effect of the water then turned in by the fin is so slight that the wheel is practically free running. If the supply pressure increases the jet flow increases. More water is then deflected into retarding position, thus to a degree keeping down the speed notwithstanding the greater power applied. If the pressure increases further, another retarding agency comes to the assistance of this deflector, and causes more water to pile up in the path of the buckets. This is the restricted discharge outlet, the size of which is predetermined so that a small flow of water will escape unchecked, but larger flow will so exceed the immediate discharge capacity of the nozzle as to cause an accumulation of water in the bottom of the case, and thus will increase the body of water through which the revolving blades must force their way. If there be a sufficient further increase of pressure in the supply, the casing may fill with water, and the water begin to swirl with the buckets. Still another agency of the invention thereupon becomes effective. This last is a series of fins projecting inward on the side wall of the casing. Extending inward only a relatively short distance beside the path of the buckets, they project further into the swirling water at locations near the axis of the wheel. These continuously breakup any tendency of the water to circulate around the casing, and thus enable the water to be utilized in an obstructive manner. Accordingly, as the applied power increases, due to increase of pressure of the incoming water, the larger amount of water thereby forced into the casing, which heretofore has only been expended in increasing the speed of the motor, is utilized by the present invention to impede and retard the wheel, so that the resultant effect of this larger power is not an objectionably higher speed.

It is intended that the patent shall cover, by suitable expression in the appended claims, whatever features of patentablc novelty exist in the invention disclosed.

In the accompanying drawings, which illustrate one application of the invention that. has been found successful;

Figure 1, is a sectional elevation showing a water motor actuated alarm;

Figure 2 is a view from the left in Figure 1, showing the motor and water connections with a part of said cover broken away; and

Figure 3 is a view of the interior surface of the side cover of the motor casing, showing the raised fins thereon.

Referring to the drawings, the apparatus comprising an alarm gong 10, placed usually on the outer side of the wall 12 of a building in which a sprinkler system is installed, whose discharge is to be announced by the ringing of the gong. On the inner side of the same wall is a water motor 1 1, whose shaft 16 carries 011 its motor end a water wheel 18, and on its gong end a striking devise comprising a diametrical arm 20 having a connterhalancing weight 22 at one extremity and a striker washer 24 at the other. This washer is loosely mounted on a pin 26 on the arm, so that as the latter rotates the washer may move outward toward the gong to strike it, and so that it may move away from the gong under the force of the rebound after contact has been made. Up to a certain limit of rotative speed, the washer as it rotates about the shaft 16 produces a series of distinct tappings upon the gong, as is already well known, but when this limit is exceeded apparatus heretofore used produces a mere rattling sound, inefi'ective as an alarm. To prevent such a failure of alarm, the invention provides for holding down the rotative speed of the striker; and this is accomplished by governing the speed of the water motor.

The water wheel 18 of this motor has peripheral blades 28 of suitable shape, against which an impinging et of water is delivered upward from a small inlet nozzle 30 arranged on the lower side of the motor casing. The water injected through this nozzle comes from the sprinkler main (not shown) in which is arranged any suitable alarm valve, whose unseating, upon the beginning of a discharge of the system, opens an auxiliary passage 32 leading eventually into the illustrated external chamber 34 in the water motor casing. From this chamber the water, after passing through a filtering screen 86, is jetted against the bucket blades of the water wheel, causing the latter to rotate. The water reacting from the blades falls to the discharge opening std-leading to a drain pipe 42. Vihen the speed is great enough this waterrgoes over the shaft of the wheel and more or less flows down along the circumferential wall of the casing, following the path of the blades, to the bottom of the casing to the discharge. In many situations found in practice the jet impact on the blades would, without the present invention, accelerate the motor until the effect of the striker washer would be nullified as heretofore explained. The apparatus illustrated has on the peripheral wall of the motor casing, in the normal course of the water, a deflector 44 which arrests the flow ust out side. of the path of the blades and turns the water sharply inward into the path of the rotating blades. The latter have to plow through this liquid obstruction. Consequently a part of the work done by the water when first striking the wheel is expended in overcoming the resistance offered later by the same water when its progress through the casing has been arrested. As a result the speed of the wheel is retarded to a degree.

As a further means of aiding in this accomplishment, the discharge orifice 40 of the casing is made of size predetermined so that, while a slight flow of water may cscape freely, the larger flow which is due to there being a higher pressure of the supply will exceed immediate capacity of the outlet, causing an accumulation of water in the lower part of the casing, thus increasing the liquid blockade which the moving blades must overcome.

If the pressure of the supply is great enough, however, the continued excess of entering water over the amount being discharged soon fills the casing; and thereupon the water contents as a whole would begin to swirl with the wheel about the axis of the motor, resulting in too great an acceleration of the wheel. Further means which prevent this are seen in the form of raised fins 46 on the inner faces of the side cover 48. In the drawings, for clearness, only one cover is shown having such fins, but if desired the other side of the casing could be similarly arranged. These fins, the number of which may be chosen according" to need, preferably extend across the face of the cover in planes which cut the circle of the wheel as chords thereof. They project but little where they are opposite the blades of the wheel as at 48, and project further into the hollow of the casing as at 48, where they are nearer the axis than are the blades, and are beside the zone of spokes that hold the blades. As the water tends to whirl with the blades and their spokes it is arrested by these fins, being somewhatdeflected downward, because of the verticality of the fins and because of its own weight. Being thus unable'to turn with the wheel, the solidarity of its liquid mass offers a resistance to the turning of the wheel. The combined effect of the peripheral deflecting surface 44, the restricted opening 40 for discharge, and the vertical fins 46 on the side walls is a holding back of the wheel so that its speed is maintained within effective alarm limits. But the retarding devices come into operation with progressively greater effect according to the need. Their retarding effect is but slight where the supply pressure is low, it automatically in creases with increase of jet pressure, and it automatically follows all fluctuations that occur, so as to keep the alarm striker always going at proper speed.

e claim as our invention:

1. The combination with a motor having a. wheel impelled by liquid striking its blades, of a casing guiding a portion of the liquid around the periphery of the wheel and'into the path of the blades on the remote side of the wheel from where liquid first strikes them.

2. The combination with a motor having a wheel impelled by liquid striking its blades, of a casing guiding a portion of tl I, liquid around the periphery of the whee and a deflecting body turning liquid thus guided into the path of the blades on the remote side of the wheel from where liquid first strikes them.

3. The combination, in a water motor having a casing and a water wheel arranged to turn therein, and having a jetting inlet arranged to direct the water against blades on said wheel, of an outlet opening in said casing constructed in such location and of such restricted capacity that a body of water is accumulated in said casing, at the outlet, in position to constitute an obstruction against the blades of said wheel, said accumulated body being delayed in escape by the said restricted capacity, of the outlet.

4. The combination, in a water motor having a casing and a water wheel therein with blades arranged to be turned by a jet, of a fin on the inside surface of the casing wall, beside the path of the rotating parts of the wheel, projecting toward them and adapted to prevent the smooth flow of water along the said inside surface of the casing, with the wheel, after striking the blades.

5. The combination, in a water motor having a casing and a water wheel therein with peripheral blades arranged to be turned by a jet, of a fin on the wall of said casing projecting into and across the course of water moving over said wall with the wheel; said fin being less outstanding opposite the path of the blades, and being more outstanding into the water course between them and the axis, whereby smooth whirling of the water with the wheel is prevented, when the casing is filled, and the water is caused to offer an obstruction to the free turning of the wheel. r

6. The combination, in a water motor having a casing with bottom outlet, and a water wheel therein with peripheral blades arranged to be turned by a jet, of a multiplicity of vertical fins on the wall of said casing projecting into and across the course of water moving over said wall with the wheel;

said fins being adapted to prevent the smooth whirling of the water with the wheel, when the casing is filled, and'to direct the water downward through the spaces between them, toward the outlet and across a portion of I 0 the path of the moving blades.

Signed at Providence, 1., this ninth day of October, 1923.

HERBERT E. ROSE, ALBERT J. LOEPSINGER. 

